Pricing Your Work, Part 2

November 6, 2009

There are two prevailing philosophies for pricing a thing for sale. One is to sell an item on the expensive end of the range for that item. This way with each one sold you have a larger return but may not sell as many items in total. The other way is to price the items lower, make less return but sell more items.

The first way requires that the items for sale can command that higher price and that you can float between sales without generating income from those items. The second way requires that you can produce enough to keep up with demand.

What’s important about knowing this when you price your work? Here’s a real life scenario:

I have arthritis which limits how much I can produce in a given time period. This means that I make fewer items overall compared to someone without any hand issues. If I were to sell my items at the lower price range and have them all sell in a short period of time, I would have nothing to sell until I can make more. Since it takes me longer to make enough to sell this would cause a supply/demand issue. It’s best to be able to keep up with demand so that you aren’t re-inventing your entire inventory all the time (unless you have the ability to do so).

Keep your eye on the prize, as they say. If the goal is to sell things, see where you fit into these equations, figure out what is realistic for you and your plan will be clear. Sometimes the plan is to have your work seen and gain exposure, maybe not so much sell it. This is how you develop a market. But that is for another post!